juggling act

I've been reading about attention and the neurology of how it works. According to science, we're not capable of dividing attention at all. When we're focused on something, we become blind to everything else. A lot of what we do is a juggling act, wherein we have to manage two or more activities at once. We alternate to the best of our ability, but can't actually focus on more than one thing at a time.

We are ignoring most of what's around us all the time. We rely on mental models to provide context, e.g. I know that as I type this, my computer room isn't going to change much. I know what the area behind me is like, without looking or even thinking about it. Likewise, as I've grown, I've formed ideas from experiences of a world that existed at the time.

It is the world I know, but it is not the world that we live in now. As I get older, so much of that same past has faded. Like old scars, the worst of them fading, all sorts of minor cuts, scrapes, and burns, now gone forever. Which is really to say, no longer a part of me in the same way, any remaining influence being indirect. I barely even know the person I used to be anymore.

We have all sorts of blind spots, habitually focusing one way over another, all our lives. The more we are thinking, the less we are seeing. What we're not seeing, we won't remember. Not thinking is no solution. What good is seeing without comprehending? This shapes our understanding of everything, but to get it right seems like it should be less a feat of singular focus, than one of great juggling.

In retrospect, I was wrong an awful lot, for feeling so much more right than everyone else. Everyone else was just wrong, too. Turns out, that's how the human condition works. We can only focus on one thing at a time in an infinitely complex world. At this point, I think it's pretty safe to say that we're all going to be wrong about everything always.

pushing myself

There's this guy about my size I've been partnering with lately. While I was gone because of my knee, he won first place in a regional BJJ tournament. I congratulated him, and didn't feel so bad about losing against him. So do lots of people, apparently. When we rolled, he was much more aggressive about going for submissions than he used to be. Confident, I suppose.

I've focused more on positioning, for a long time. I don't like being that aggressive, and my success has always been limited anyhow. When we rolled last week, he tapped me out repeatedly. It was a little frustrating.

It occurred to me that I've been focusing on positioning so much, I've hardly been going for submissions at all anymore. This week, I made it difficult for him to do much of anything, constantly trying to crank an arm or set up an armbar. Eventually I succeeded.

Then we rotated partners and I went up against this very young guy, about half a foot taller than me, way more energy. It didn't go as well. I had to take a break to avoid puking from exhaustion. Apparently, at my age I can't slack off on cardio at all or it nosedives pretty severely.

Then I did the muay thai class. Had to take a break halfway through that, too. And again fifteen minutes later. I was partnered with the same young guy. He was punching and kicking circles around me. I've got to work on this.

differentiating x to the x over x

This is math?
Ok.  Yeah, I don't want to do this anymore.

I can see the appeal, if you're the sort of person who can remember all the rules and tricks, such that you get a lot of it right. I can see how that would create a positive feedback loop that would change everything.

Me, I finally have to concede, I'm not a math person. I can watch lectures on how to do these problems, and I get the gist of it. What used to be gibberish now makes sense to me, for the most part. That's how my brain works, but that's not how math works. Getting the gist doesn't cut it. I wish it were enough, but no, they want me to be able to actually solve problems on my own. Without Google. I tried. I really did.

I'm not alone in this, I know. Two thirds of the class disappeared within the first few weeks. To me, this is indicative of a bad system. There should be a path primarily based on understanding the premises of math, such that it can be worked with as needed. A path with a whole lot less emphasis on being a human calculator - which still has its place, but should be separated out into more specialized courses, in my opinion.

This is not the system we have, and come to think of it, even if it were, maybe this isn't what I want to be doing anyhow. The chemistry, physics, the math, all interesting stuff, but after five semesters, I'm more lost than ever. It all turns out to be a lot harder than I'd expected. Which is fine, aside from the costing me hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars, and wrecking my GPA. When I say it was hard, I mean that I did a lot of failing, despite my best efforts.

On another level, I'm not really comfortable with any of it. Aside from the coding, but I can always take more computer classes on the side. On Friday, I'm meeting with my advisor, to talk about switching majors. Most of my credits should transfer over. It occurred to me I can just switch to more familiar territory. Language, writing, humanities. Not sure exactly, but I should stop sabotaging myself, focus on things I'm good at for a while.

Orange and Peach
Bhut Jolokia

This decision felt like such a weight lifted off my shoulders. It feels like the way to go. I'm also doing better, because I've been training almost regularly again. Keep missing classes for all sorts of dumb reasons, but getting there more and more.

Getting better at this gardening thing, too. I have no idea what to do with this many ghost peppers.

rethinking the calculus

Stopped taking sertaline two weeks ago.  Can't help buy notice I'm inclined to write more, again. Mostly focusing on politics for now, but not much going on until Nevada's clusterfuck caucus next week. No doubt it will be a catastrophe, the only question being how bad, and how much rigging they'll try to do amidst the chaos.. but enough about that.

I should be doing calculus. It makes me feel so stupid.  It's incredibly discouraging.  Why am I doing this to myself?  I don't know, but I can't let it beat me.  I can't quit, just accepting that I'm too dumb to figure it out.  It helps to remind myself that I started with College Algebra.  That's where the placement test put me, but I've never taken any math before.  I didn't need a brush up on factoring - I had no idea what factoring was, hoping I'd be able to wing it.

Part of why I've been struggling may simply be that there are all sorts of gaping holes in my knowledge, stuff I'm expected to know from high school.  Maybe it's not chronic dyscalculia after all, but starting at that level does seem to have been a mistake.

Simply put, I had no idea math was going to be this hard.  I'm certainly no genius at it.  I vaguely remember posting before I started, that I didn't even know what algebra was.  Kind of joking, but not really ..and now example problems from my math homework look like [this]

I want to get through this last semester of math, but then reconsider my direction. I wanted to make this extra difficult for myself, in a way.  I wanted to learn new things, but it's been a lot of work struggling to catch up all the time.  More than I've been able to handle.  Maybe my energy would be more efficiently spent studying things that come more naturally to me. Might make more sense to consider what I'd be comfortable with doing all day every day, too.

I've been seeing this academic counselor whose been trying to help me with that. Like, if I'm into writing and politics, why not political science and journalism?  It seems implausible to me that people would be paid for such a thing but who knows.